Why America Built a Bigger Army

The United States' first great military expansion began with a war for Indigenous land

More than two centuries ago, on a battlefield in what is now Indiana, hundreds of American soldiers were lured to their deaths with trinkets. On a dark, warm autumn night in 1790, General Josiah Harmar marched his troops toward Kiihkayonki, the capital of the Myaamia nation. At the time, the US Army was so small that most of the fighting force was from …